ND Filters for Photography

[NickAdams]

Hi folks,

  What is the best 8x ND filter you would recommend at a reasonable price?  Need one for my next Photography job. Please advise.

Cheers,
Nic

[M.ST]

Get the Lee filters. Singh-Ray filters costs more and cokin filter are cheaper but not so good.

[bigmag13]

check out 2filters.com
I just ordered a Cir-Pol a set of soft grads and a 10 stop ND. my budget was tight to outfit my 16-35L but i don't do much landscape. heard good reviews about the Hi-tech series. I hope they pan out.

I have B+W on all my kit, but my money is funny until more jobs come along, lol.

Ps. all for less than 300 the Cir -Pol is Murami Super DHG 82mm, I hope this Murami shoots close enough to the B+W

[charlesa]

Get the Lee filters. Singh-Ray filters costs more and cokin filter are cheaper but not so good.

Cannot go wrong with Lee, I can vouch for their Big Stopper. B+W, Cokin and Singh Ray make slightly inferior but still reputable products.

[M.ST]

I use from B+W only the polfilters, from Lee the ND and GND filters with the filter holder and the vari ND filter from Singh Ray.

I change from the cokin system to the Lee system, because I get color casts with the ND and GND filters from cokin.

[daniela]

Schneider Kreuznach (B+W) filters are very good too. I´m using B+W Grey filters 101-106 for over 20 years.
They produce slim versions, so you don´t have to worry so much of vignetting.
The 106 produces warm colors. EBV will correct that.
B careful if your camera produces much noise.

[canon816]

It's not cheap but in my opinion the Singh ray 8 stop vari nd filter is worth every penny.

It will cover the full range of stops without compromising image quality.

I use mine all the time... And couldnt live without it. 

[Rienzphotoz]

It's not cheap but in my opinion the Singh ray 8 stop vari nd filter is worth every penny.

It will cover the full range of stops without compromising image quality.

I use mine all the time... And couldnt live without it.

I totally agree ... but unfortunately, I don't use it as often as I should  ... I've got too many do dads and I get distracted with them and forget to carry some of the important filters

[Chewy734]

The LEE Big Stopper.  Arguably the best 10-stop ND filter you can buy.

[NickAdams]

Thank you all, I'm going to look into Lee's filter today.

[noisejammer]

OP - Since you're after an 8x, I assume it's 3 stops you want.

If you're going for a Lee filter, be wary that they specify their filters in terms of optical density. So 0.3 = 1 stop, 0.6 = 2 stops, 0.9 = 3 stops etc.

The Lee Big Stopper (mentioned above) has an optical density of 10 (give or take) which equates to 10 stops. 10 stops means your shutter is open for 1000x longer than it would be without the filter... This can be a help or a hindrance.

On colour cast - up to 3  stops, colour cast is not much of a problem (except with Cokin) but my experience has been that all filters exhibit some colour cast. The solution is to make a test image using something like a X-rite Color Checker. As a rule, you can get away with somewhat higher ISO so the photographic process doesn't need to take forever.